The present invention relates to a navigation system, and more specifically, to a navigation system for a vehicle using a voice portal server to aid in the identification of a destination location.
Navigation systems for both personal use and vehicle use are proliferating. These navigation systems may use any number of possible positioning methods. Especially important in the development of portable navigation systems is the reduction in size and cost of systems using GPS (Global Positioning System). GPS uses satellites in low-earth orbit to position the user on the earth""s surface. DGPS (Differential Global Position System) is a method of improving the position solution of GPS by correcting the pseudoranges received by a GPS receiver using fixed stations in the vicinity of the GPS receiver. AGPS (Assisted Global Positioning System) is a method of incorporating a mobile communicator into the GPS system and using the communicator to outsource all, or a portion, of the position computation to a remote processing center, and thereby reduce the computing power incorporated in the mobile GPS receiver. AGPS can also incorporate the improved position solution possible with DGPS at a lower cost by correcting the pseudoranges of the AGPS receiver at the remote processing center. Cell-phone based positioning systems may use variations of traditional triangulation methods, cell identification, and intersections of hyperbolic solutions of time-delays at either base stations or dedicated mobile phone positioning stations. Combinations of any of the above-mentioned systems are also possible.
Most navigation devices require, in addition to the current position that is calculated by the positioning system (e.g. GPS), a destination, and possibly a collection of possible routes (e.g. streets, roads, and highways). Therefore, most navigation devices require a destination to be input into the device. Various types of data input devices have been used in different situations. Some exemplary data input devices include keypad inputs, touchscreen inputs, and voice inputs. However, each of these types of inputs suffers from some drawback in an implementation in a personal, mobile navigation device. For instance, keypad units are time-consuming and attention-diverting, making them inappropriate for vehicle navigation because the driver is often the person inputting the information, and the vehicle is often in motion when the driver wants to access the navigation device. Touchscreen inputs also divert attention from the driving process, and though they may be more time-efficient than keypad entry, they often require more computing power and more expensive components (e.g. a touch-sensitive screen) than a simple keypad entry system. Voice input has a tremendous advantage in that it diverts little, if any, of the driver""s attention from the driving act. However this advantage is counter-balanced by the fact that voice-recognition software is complex and expensive, and requires a relatively large amount of computing power to implement.
The goal of the present invention is to provide a system that implements a voice input system for a mobile navigation device without the additional cost of incorporating a voice-recognition system into the mobile navigation device.
A system is provided for navigating a user. The system includes a mobile communicator, a decoder, a navigation device, a base station, and a voice portal server. The voice portal server allows remote identification of a destination location from a requested destination through voice recognition and other means, and then communicates the identified destination location to the mobile navigation device over the mobile communicator, for instance over the voice channel of a mobile phone. The mobile navigation device is then able to assist the driver in navigating from the current position to the destination location, without the driver having to divert attention away from driving to input the destination location into the navigation device. Additionally, the present invention implements the voice data input system for the destination address without the addition to the navigation device of the substantial computing power associated with a stand-alone voice recognition system.
The present invention also provides a method for a vehicle occupant to obtain navigation information using the system of the present invention. The method provides for the occupant to communicate via the mobile communicator and the base station to the voice portal server a requested location. The voice portal server communicates in turn via the base station and the mobile communicator to the decoder a coded destination location. The coded destination location corresponds to an encoded version of the destination location and is decoded by the decoder to determine the destination location. This destination location is then communicated to the navigation device.
A vehicle navigation apparatus is additionally provided which includes a mobile communicator, a decoder, and a vehicle navigation device, all of which are situated in the vehicle. This navigation apparatus communicates via the mobile phone and a base station to a voice portal server. The voice portal server operates in a similar fashion to the system described above to receive and recognize a requested location and communicate back to the apparatus via the base station and the mobile communicator a destination location.